JCDecaux Australia to add NFC to out-of-home advertising network

The global out-of-home advertising leader has signed a two year agreement which will see Tapit equip 240 advertising panels with NFC tags to create Australiaʼs first NFC-enabled outdoor advertising network.

TAPIT: Two year deal with JCDecaux

JCDecaux Australia has signed signed an exclusive two year agreement with NFC marketing specialist Tapit which creates Australiaʼs first dedicated NFC out-of-home (OOH) advertising network.

The deal will see the company connecting 240 panels across JCDecauxʼs street furniture inventory to Tapit systems. This will enable advertisers to create out-of-home campaigns that consumers can interact with via their mobile phones. People walking past an enabled panel will be able to touch their NFC phone to a Tapit symbol to retrieve a wide variety of types of mobile content.

To give advertisers maximum reach with mobile consumers Tapit will also provide integrated SMS and QR code capabilities. Advertisers will be able to request any or all of the mobile interaction options, but both JCDecaux and Tapit say they believe “NFC is the future”.

“By the end of 2011 itʼs anticipated that over 80% of mobile handsets in Australia will have internet capability,” says Steve OʼConnor, CEO at JCDecaux Australia. “As a consequence, outdoor is set to play an increasingly important role in helping advertisers drive an online offering. Recognizing this growth potential, we have partnered with an established specialist company in Tapit to ensure we deliver for advertisers the best possible connectivity.”

“This is exciting stuff,” adds Jamie Conyngham, Tapit’s CEO. “Because of the JCDecaux-Tapit combination, new types of OOH mobile campaigns are now possible. This is not only about downloading content from street furniture; we can now drive people from the street furniture into the nearest store to increase sales through incentives.”

Tapit has already completed four NFC-enabled campaigns with JC Decaux. In a campaign for the prime time TV series ‘The Renovators’, users were encouraged to ‘tapit’ to download a ringtone:

Advertising for Sydney radio station Nova FM enabled users to tapit to stream radio and in a promotion for The QVB, one of central Sydney’s premier shopping centres, people were encouraged to tapit to go in a draw to win a shopping spree:

“Now that the NFC network is in place, brands and agencies can truly join physical advertising to digital advertising in a simple way,” says Tapit. “Not only that, they can plan campaigns where each panel does different things depending upon its location and time of day.”